Stranded
by cheerypits
Summary: How do you have an architect who can't see? ArthurxAriadne. T for language, and potential other things.
1. Lost and Found

**AN: Hello! This is my third fic here. I used to write, but I took a long hiatus. Here I am again. And I'm glad to be back. This is also my second Arthur/Ariadne fic, and I hope you like it!**

* * *

**_Lost & Found_  
**

It starts as the sun sets.

Ariadne fits the world into a maze, sculpting and hollowing out the curves and sharp turns of a labyrinth. When necessary, she improvises. She's always been good at that; that's why she's Professor Miles' best. Improvisation, and _quality _improvisation, is a rare skill.

But for a moment her vision slips, and the darkness seems even darker than usual. If that's even possible. It's solid now, and presses on her, unusually hostile.

She recoils briefly, bumping into Dom.

"Sorry," she mumbles, shifting her feet until her balance is righted again.

"Change the layout," he hisses in reply.

It's a lot harder to change something you can't see, but Ariadne tries anyway. She tries to remember what the turn that comes up looks like when under moonlight and other potential directions so that their mark will take wrong turns.

But she can't, because it's not her dream anymore, it belongs to the dark. She can't remember. Their feet pound the pavement, hers and Dom's – the others are stationed elsewhere. Yusuf is out there, their back-up. Eames and Arthur are ahead, prepared to take the mark on an ambush.

The ambush will only work if the mark is misdirected. He's keeping this secret in the front pocket of his coat, apparently his version of a strongbox.

"I can't." She skids, feet searching for solid ground and catching on the edges of a drain (how had she forgotten that? She'd freaking _built _it, for heaven's sake. And they called her an architect.)

"Focus!" Dom's hands grab Ariadne's shoulders they round a corner, guiding them physically. "What the hell, Ariadne?"

She turns indignantly, trying to face Dom and failing. "I can't see!" Her eyes trace the lines of Dom's arms he gestures at what faint source of light glows in her dulled vision.

"It's not pitch dark; we agreed we'd make the moon bright, remember? Of course you can see. Now hurry, the mark's almost at that turn."

Ariadne shakes her head miserably.

"It's just one change! A tiny change compared to what we asked of you last time. Just. Change. The. Direction. Turn the road downhill. Come on."

But it's not Dom Cobb's dream, and no matter how much he cajoles and rebukes, Ariadne can't picture it anymore. She doesn't even know where 'downhill' is. It's all black.

How do you have an architect who can't see?

Piaf starts to play. It's welcome, sometimes, when they're stuck too long and too deep and can't come out on their own. Then they need Yusuf's help from outside the dream for a kick. But this time they all hear it and they all hate it.

Failure should be out of the question for the team. They're made for each other, practically. Each falls into their own roles easily, not just as Architect and Extractor and Forger and all that, but also as a family. Dom is the naggy, over-excitable dad. Eames is probably the kooky uncle that is never invited for family events but shows up anyway. And Yusuf? He's unwavering, steady, the rock of things. Never a major player but a pillar all the same.

Arthur and Ariadne, on the other hand, are the young ones on the team. Arthur has been doing this for a lot longer than she has, but she isn't sure how both of them fit into their dysfunctional family dynamic.

She's not even sure it matters.

Not right now, certainly. Not when Dom is questioning her fervently: _why-did-you-fail-this-time-you-never-fail _and Ariadne _never _failed, she knew that, she wasn't wired for it. She could tolerate failure in others, maybe, but not her own.

Which is why she tells Dom, in the end, that she really doesn't know. She'll figure it out. She'll be fine. She leaves first, feeling their eyes trailing her as she gets up and walks to the door of the planning room, a set of blueprints under her arm, and notes Arthur has given her on their next job.

She doesn't tell them that her vision is a tunnel, that the edges of her sight are blurred and appear as smears of colour. She doesn't tell them that she's so, very afraid.

The second time is, if anything, worse. Ariadne has taken her precautions – she spends late nights (with all the lights on, blazing, in hopes that they can sear themselves into her mind) poring over the plans, committing them to memory, willing herself to be consumed by them – a walking, breathing labyrinth.

She knows the trashcan should be a metre from where she and Eames are standing. She points it out to him even though its evening and the edges are blurring. He walks over to it, the clean lines of his suit jacket smudged in her vision, and disposes of his wig.

"What happens to the things we throw away in dreams?" Ariadne wonders aloud.

Eames sits on a park bench and removes his right shoe, turning it in his hands thoughtfully. Ariadne joins him. She doesn't always expect answers from Eames – not straightforward ones, at any rate. If she wanted direct talk, she'd have asked Dom or Arthur.

But he answers anyway, dropping the shoe in and replacing it with a ratty old sandal. Homeless are common in Central Park; spread on the benches, in tattered blankets and scraps of clothing. Ariadne watches as he makes a quiet transformation.

"I don't really need to throw these away, per se," Eames says. He can just as easily dream them away, replace them in his mind with more appropriate attire as he's doing right now. A bright, garish, cheap sweater swallows his perfectly tailored shirt. "I just do it for the symbolism. Makes the transition easier."

He might not look it, but Ariadne has come to realise that Eames is a hopeless romantic. He's poetic. He delivers one-liners with a kind of practised style, loves clichés with a kind of obsession. It's perhaps appropriate given that he's such an actor.

"But they're not really gone. You can throw anything away in dreams. And when you wake up…" He pulls an old photo from the pocket of his trousers, the last item of clothing that needs changing. It's a photo of them, at the airport. After Fischer and Saito. After Mal.

It was a safety risk. If anyone ever found that photo, it would raise questions – what were these people doing in LAX together? And with Saito, too?

But, damn it all, don't they look happy?

Ariadne reaches for it involuntarily, but Eames drops it into the trashcan with a casual flick of his hand.

"… you find it again."

That's the danger of dreaming, she thinks. You can take it all lightly – lives and memories and feelings and time. They're in abundance; practically in excess in the dreamscape.

But they should be taken seriously, treated with delicacy. They deserve that reverence. So as Eames playfully pushes Ariadne off the bench to recline on the bench, she rummages blindly in the trashcan until her fingers stop touching fabric and find paper.

She puts it in her pocket, next to the bishop. It can be her other totem.

"See you," she tells Eames, and slips off into the dark. There are a few people walking around – mostly bits of the mark's subconscious. They're calm, strolling, taking in the sunset, which is good. It means the mark hasn't suspected anything.

She remembers what Dom told her in her first dream (not her first, but it might as well have been, that awakening to a whole world), when Dom had still been Cobb. Talking to those figments of someone's mind can reveal plenty about them. So she approaches one, a lone figure by the pond.

She has five minutes, she figures, before Arthur appears. Then her work starts. So she starts talking.

"Hi!"

The figure turns slightly, surprised, and she can make out a hard, masculine jawline against the light of a nearby streetlamp. The figure is lean, but spreads slightly to paunch lower on his body. He's wearing jeans and a t-shirt, she guesses from the shadow.

"Oh, hello!" He sounds self-deprecating, a little unused to talking to women. Ariadne decides that she rather likes this shadow, however unreal he is. He's friendlier than Mal, at least.

"Come here a lot?"

"Yeah, I – I do some jogging. My sister, she's always telling me I need to lose weight." He chuckles sheepishly, the sound rippling through him, curving his body a little.

She really, really likes him. But then she's reminded that she's supposed to be trying some snooping work. First things first: the mark doesn't care very much for his physical fitness. He's open, ready to talk about his family, a rare trait for a New Yorker. His relationship with them is strong. Might or might not have a sister or brother.

Meanwhile, Ariadne has no idea what he looks like, or what he's wearing. And she's found nothing useful, unless they're going to blackmail him into agreement using his sister, just like Robert Fischer's father. Perhaps she'd raise that at the next discussion sesion chaired by Arthur (probably not.)

"She must care about you a lot," Ariadne says, probingly. The jogger shifts on his feet – she can see his silhouette moving. Suddenly she has another thought: the mark isn't married. A married man would have taken less kindly to his sister's advice; in the first place, he would already have had the advice of a loving spouse. There's a high chance that the mark is single.

"Yeah, she does." Then he's closing off slightly, a bit unsure. New Yorkers don't often have proper, concerned conversations with each other. Ariadne presses forward anyway, because this might be the most fascinating conversation she's ever had in a dream.

"I'm Ariadne. What's your name?" she asks. Then she has to refrain from crying out as a hand grabs her arm, hard, from behind.

"What are you doing?" a familiar voice hisses. "You're not supposed to talk to him."

It's Arthur. Angry Arthur, which is never any fun. Unlike Eames, he's practical and plays by the rules. He's a realist to a fault.

"But it's just a shade, it's not really –"

"I'm Christopher," he says, and turns to face Ariadne. He smiles, about to stick out a hand to shake, when he realises there's a man behind her. Holding her arm. Threateningly. "Um… are you okay?"

A few passing shades look up, watching the scene. Ariadne's all too aware of the potential dangers of this situation. Because she's just spent five minutes talking to a mark. And she told him her name. Damn it.

In the half-light, and with his face to her, Ariadne can see it now. Christopher Wilkins, a philanthropist hiding the secrets of a corrupt relation in politics to protect him. Entirely well-meaning Christopher Wilkins, whose uncle might be traced as the cause of a terrorist bombing in England.

They had so much at stake here, and she's just ruined everything. She should've known, should've guessed from his profile, but in the darkness it was impossible to see anything.

"I'm fine," she says quickly. "This is – this is Arthur." And she curses herself again, into oblivion if possible, because _shit why can't she come up with a fake name for once?_

"He's my boyfriend." That was one lie that came easily, at least. "He's, um, a little possessive."

Arthur nods stiffly, his hand still holding Ariadne's upper arm tight. His fingers can fit almost all the way around her slim muscle. "I don't much like her talking to strangers," he says gruffly.

"Right! I – I meant no harm, really –"

Then Christopher must be feeling afraid, because the watching shades start making their way over, and Ariadne senses trouble brewing. Why can't an extraction ever go smoothly?

"It's okay! Arthur's always like this. You know what it's getting late, we should go. Nice meeting you, Christopher!"

She tugs Arthur's arm and hurries down a slope, out of sight of Christopher (and the approaching shades). Now they have to change their plans somewhat – Eames, posing as a homeless man who will win Christopher's trust and gain access to his home, will have to get up and make his way over to the mark instead of having Arthur guide him over.

Now the risks are even higher than before.

Arthur pulls his arm away the second Christopher out of their line of vision, and faces Ariadne. He looks positively sinister in moonlight. Looming. Ariadne wishes so badly that she could see colours the way she used to, because she remembers that Arthur has the sort of face that glows in dim lighting, it reflects off the angles of his face in that particular way.

"Is there a problem, Ariadne?"

He doesn't say it like a warning. He says it like a question, coolly, neutral.

She says no but her head nods yes.

"Because this is really fucking everything up," he says, still monotonous, but the use of a profanity is an indication. Arthur doesn't swear often.

"I'm sorry." He thinks an apology isn't enough. She knows that. He knows she knows that. So he waits for her to continue. "It's been getting worse lately. I mean, at first I couldn't see well in poor lighting. I thought maybe my eyes were tired."

Ariadne has to look at him directly, because corner-of-her-eye peeking doesn't work out anymore, and it makes her self-conscious. Nervous. Because she knows Arthur's eyes can pick out plenty of things about her, plenty of _faults. _He's just too much of a gentleman to say so.

"Now I can't see out from the sides of my vision, it's just…" she gestures in the general direction of the patch of blindness. "It's just black."

"Why didn't you say so before?" But his eyes aren't judging her this time, aren't picking out those details about her that make her flawed. People think Ariadne is pretty, beautiful, even. But she believes Arthur sees all the ugly. Just by looking. This time, though, he's just looking into her eyes and_ oh my it's frightening, his eyes look completely black, there are no whites, there isn't anything in there,_ and he's not blinking.

Ariadne is blinking far more than usual. "I thought it would get better." Which is a half-lie. Arthur knows that too. They both know Ariadne prefers to be independent, strong, proud, not a burden as a woman on an otherwise all-male team. Not that she hasn't proven her worth to be there. It just gets to her sometimes, that people think women are weaker. She doesn't ever want to have to prove that belief right.

In the next moment her hands are in his, clasped, surrounded by warm, dry skin. She feels impossibly tiny.

"It does get better when you dream," he says. "You can make yourself see perfectly in your dreams."

Logically, Ariadne should be able to. Dreams are what dreamers make of them, after all. But it's difficult, it involves forgetting what it's like to not-see and remembering what it's like to see completely. She can't do it. And she can't stop feeling like a failure since that first mistake.

"I can't," she says miserably. She remembers telling that to Dom, too. But people seem to insist that she can do things.

"Sure you can," Arthur says lightly. "You remember what I look like."

Ariadne nods. She does. She remembers his face because she's sketched it, all the dips and curves, unexpectedly soft lines on an angular face. She closes her eyes and it's all there, for retrieval. Memories of those days when her vision had been flawless (and so had she.)

"Open your eyes."

She does, and the vision remains, the vision of Arthur's face only it's real and not her imagination anymore. She knows because she reaches up and touches it, because she sees this time that his eyes are brown, liquid, _beautiful_. She knows she can see because as she leans in to kiss Arthur on the lips she can see Eames out of the corner of her eye, watching them and trying not to look surprised as he shuffles near to the mark.

And she knows because Arthur's hands drop hers and move to her shoulders, holding her away gently but firmly. She knows because it's exactly what she would expect of him, because he's exactly the way she remembers him.

"It worked," he says, smiling.

Ariadne is thankful that he doesn't make it more awkward than it has to be. "Yeah. Thanks."

And she supposes the opposite to what Eames' said is also true – she can lose something in reality, and find it here.


	2. Go Where They Can't Follow

**A/N: I'm at the airport right now, waiting for friends. Thought I might publish this while waiting. Reviews are always appreciated!**

* * *

Dom brings her to a doctor, because he's Dom.

"I'm okay," Ariadne insists, even as they're driving to the hospital.

Dom ignores her, concentrating on the turn coming up ahead even though he doesn't have to.

"Dom," she repeats. "I'm. Okay."

The car screeches to a stop at a traffic light. Dom's knuckles are pale as he grips the wheel. He turns, stretching the seat belt (he started using them after going back to Philippa and James), to look at Ariadne.

She has to shift slightly because he's out of her line of vision. He's too far left when she's sitting on the right side of the car, and the most she can see at a time is now less than a metre.

It's like walking around with her eyes half-shut.

But Ariadne regrets moving to meet Dom's eyes now. His face is worn and lined. She knows he's been aging – she doesn't expect them to stay still, to stay the same, while she struggles to see them properly – but she's a little surprised to see how far his hairline has receded, how the golden strands of hair are mixed with flecks of grey.

"No, you're not," he says quietly. Ariadne doesn't argue this time, and they pull away from the traffic light.

* * *

The doctor keeps telling them _you should have come before _and it doesn't help much (it doesn't help at all). It's retinis pigmentosa, he explains. It's a genetic disorder and has no existing treatment.

Dom stares and asks the questions for Ariadne, because she really doesn't know what to say. "Is she going to lose her vision completely?"

"Complete blindness is rare, but I wouldn't rule it out."

"What can we do?"

The doctor tilts Ariadne's chin and looks into her eyes. It's awkward and reminds her too much of the last encounter with Arthur. She pulls away as soon as he releases her.

"Not much. We can provide sunglasses that will preserve _some _vision, but…"

That pause is long enough to say, _don't get your hopes up._

For the first time since they'd entered the room, Ariadne speaks. "I don't want it."

Dom turns to her quickly, ever protective, his hand touching hers briefly. "Don't want the sunglasses? We don't have to –"

"I don't want to be blind," she says.

And there Dom has no answer. Ariadne takes a cruel pleasure in silencing Dom Cobb, because he doesn't know everything, because even he can't protect her from this.

Maybe it's a few minutes later, maybe an hour, when Dom says, "Let's go." His voice is tired and despairing and it hurts to hear.

Ariadne follows, taking sharp turns at every step so she can see everything around her. She looks like she might be dancing, her feet twisting irregularly. She knows why they call it tunnel vision now, and she's making those tunnels of her eyes into a maze. She can't see whole rooms properly. She can't build.

They're not occupied with any cases at the moment, so Dom brings her for coffee, because he's Dom. They go to her favourite café, where she always picks up drinks and pastries when they're on the job and too busy to find sustenance. Those were the times when she had a part in looking after them.

A few steps in and she trips over the leg of a chair, angles herself so she doesn't hit a girl in an apron bearing a steaming mug of coffee, and lands on the concrete flooring. Someone giggles. Ariadne would've seen who the person was and possibly exploded at them, but they're out of sight.

She turns in a full circle to face Dom head-on.

He looks like he's about to cry, but she ignores it like she ignores the blush that's creeping up her neck and face. She finds a seat, all business, and takes care to move slower this time. They order something – Ariadne doesn't remember what, and it doesn't matter.

"I want to go back to Paris," she says.

"Why's that?" Dom's watching people pass outside the window, which annoys Ariadne because she can't see what he's looking at. The window is too far to the side.

"So I can finish my degree."

Then he stops looking out of the window, which is satisfying. So is the disbelief on his face.

"Won't all that –" he gestures vaguely with his hands, "- be a problem?"

Ariadne considers this. 'All that', she assumes, means the retinis pigmentosa. She doesn't think so. She can still see rooms and houses and buildings, can still study blueprints and draw scales. Architecture doesn't need perfect vision. It's more difficult, of course, but Ariadne isn't afraid of that. She still wants to build, even if it's on paper.

She shakes her head.

Their coffees come. Dom drinks it black. His hand reaches out of her line of sight to some remote corner and returns, bearing a packet of sugar. Ariadne has a latte.

"I'll come back when I'm done and work on the team again."

Of course she will, and of course they want her to. Ariadne is the best architect they've ever had, the best maze-builder. She's also the best talker, the one who knows what to say when none of them do. She's the go-between and the go-to. And she loves them all almost feverishly, because they're her dysfunctional family and she needs them. But she needs her work too.

"You're serious about this?"

Ariadne smiles, but it's a sad smile. "As a permanent eye disease."

She was never the funny one. They saved that role for Eames.

* * *

Eames and Yusuf see her off. Dom wanted to come, but he forgot James' birthday (he's still remembering how to be a father) and now he has to pick up a cake and call the parents of James' friends – who are complete strangers – and get food.

Ariadne helps while she can, blowing up balloons with Philippa. Or at least, she's doing the blowing. Philippa looks like she's about to spit up a lung into the stretchy flourescent rubber.

"I'll finish these, Phil, and you put them up. How's that?"

The girl considers this offer and decides Ariadne doesn't mean to be patronising. "Alright," she agrees brightly, seizing two balloons and taping them haphazardly to the wall.

Well. At least they stick, Ariadne smiles wryly.

She keeps Philippa and James out of Dom's way until the last possible moment. They accompany her to LAX, along with 'Uncle Eames' and 'Uncle Yusuf'.

The dissatisfaction on Eames' face is cause for amusement.

Yusuf drives an old Ford Fiesta. James gets to sit in front because it's his birthday tomorrow. Eames, by some odd mishap (or perhaps Ariadne's manoeuvering) is seated in between Ariadne and Philippa. His legs in their pinstriped trousers are too long for a middle seat, and bend at a steep angle.

Ariadne watches everything unfold from the reflection in the car window. Her eyes can't see much farther outside of that.

"So your name's Philippa."

"Yeah."

"Can I call you Philip?"

"I think so. Ariadne calls me Phil." She can see Philippa watching her in the reflection, and she thinks how sad it is that colours are whitewashed in images. Philippa has beautiful, sunny yellow hair and blue eyes. She's a picture. There's no camera quite like the human eye, Ariadne thinks mournfully.

"How old are you?"

"I'm five."

"You speak well for your age."

"You speak differently from Daddy."

"Ah, that's because I'm British."

"Why's that different?"

"Because you're American and British people speak differently from Americans. We have different accents."

"But why do British people speak different?"

"Because – well, because we're just born that way, and we grow up listening to our parents speak that way. It's just the way things are."

Ariadne is impressed that Eames has gone this long without making a sarcastic remark or cutting Philippa off. She likes that he takes her questions seriously. She realises that he's always been one for drawing people in, it's his nature. When they'd first met, Eames already treated her like a part of the team, laughing and teasing at her. He's the part that keeps them all afloat when they're in too deep, when they might be drowning in their own solemnity.

Yusuf has experience with kids – Ariadne has heard all their stories, and she knows Yusuf wants children of his own very much. He looks after his sister's children on weekends because of her part-time job. He worries how they'll manage without him. He never planned to stay away this long. He sends his earnings back home regularly to make up for it.

The experience helps; he's already chatting away with James about his school life and playground fights and how Robbie took his toy car but gave it back the next day and now they're best friends.

Ariadne smiles. She's the watcher for today, even though she can't quite see clearly. It might be more accurate to call her the listener.

"Ariadne?"

It's James, turning from the front seat to regard her.

"Yeah?"

She blinks at him, the patch of blond hair slowly focussing in her eyes.

"Where's Uncle Arthur?"

When he's not a point man, Arthur is a detective. Ariadne didn't quite believe it at first, but later she thinks that it does suit him after all. He's methodical, clever, sharp, and sometimes instinctive. More accurately, he's a police consultant. It's not full-time and flexible enough so he can get away when he needs to, but when he's free, it gives him a steady income.

And more importantly, he told Ariadne once, it gives him something to do.

"He's… busy."

Good question. Arthur is probably somewhere being important, solving crimes and collecting details on suspects. Ariadne wonders if he would need to wear a policeman's uniform. In her imagination, he looks years younger in blue.

"Doing what?"

"Working."

* * *

James and Philippa insist on pulling her luggage for five minutes before declaring that they want to sit on her bag instead. Ariadne refuses on the grounds that her bag is too small. And it is.

The kids sulk for a while, but get distracted by a man in a sombrero. "Can you get me that hat?"

"I'll see if they have any in Paris."

Someone pushes a trolley towards them. Ariadne doesn't spot it coming past her, on her right side, and just as she turns to read the timing on the display, it rolls over her foot.

"Outta the way, girlie!"

Eames moves closer in seconds, fist balled up and pressed into his sides like a threat, and invades the unseen person's space. Ariadne hears more than sees it happen, stares fixedly at the display. FLIGHT NW64 PARIS DEPARTING 42879374892734 –

Numbers and letters blur together. She rubs at her eyes fiercely and tries again.

Yusuf is beside her. "4:55 P.M.," he reads out loud, pretending he's doing it for himself, or for the kids. Ariadne nods thankfully even though he'll pretend not to have seen it.

She misses being independent.

Eames materialises on her other side, followed by the stranger who turns out to be an old man in crinkled slacks and a tee-shirt. Ariadne knows he's widowed, can tell from the bags under his eyes and the dried-up quality to him, that he's cried too much in this lifetime.

"Sorry 'bout that, miss," he says.

She turns slightly so she doesn't have to see his face, so he becomes a fuzzy grey patch in the corner of her eye. When he leaves, Ariadne turns to Eames. "You didn't have to."

"He was rude."

"Who isn't, sometimes? It was fine. You didn't have to make a big deal out of it."

"He hurt you."

"Eames, I don't _need _your protecting!"

"I'm not trying to mollycoddle you!"

"Well, it sure feels like it."

Yusuf places a hand on Eames' shoulder before he can respond. James and Philippa watch them, wide-eyed. Right. Ariadne had forgotten the kids. They didn't have to see anymore arguments than they already had, with Dom and Mal. The world wasn't supposed to be so fickle for them.

"You wouldn't have done it if I wasn't like – like this," Ariadne can't resist telling Eames.

"Of course I would've."

Eames might as well be a chronic liar; it's in his profession, and it's his way of making people feel better. He has no qualms about white lies or black lies or any lie in any colour. Ariadne knows it's a coping mechanism, so she bears it. It's enough that she knows when he's sincere, can see it in his face. Now isn't one of those times.

Ariadne stoops to kiss Philippa and tries to peck James on the cheek, but he's at the age where cooties are rampant and she has to chase after him, laughing, to grab him in a tight embrace.

"I'll miss you two. Be good."

Then she hugs Yusuf. "Take care." And finally Eames – she's tempted to shake his hand and walk off, given that they've just been in an argument.

But this is _Eames. _She can't just do that. She tiptoes and flings her arms around his neck. "Oh, Eames," she sighs into his neck.

Ariadne feels rather than hears the catch in his breath. "I'm sorry you have to be like this," he says. "You don't deserve this shit. It's not fair."

The honesty in his eyes makes her want to cry, and she knows she's not going to see Eames in this mood for a long time.

"Yeah. I'll live, though."

He grins. "Of course."

The next minutes pass quickly. She checks in her baggage, submits to a series of checks, flashes her boarding pass when asked to, and waves goodbye to her motley farewell crew in the departure hall.

She does cry, in the end. And she hadn't wanted to in front of James and Philippa, but then again missing someone isn't always a bad thing, isn't always something to be hidden and controlled.

Ariadne wishes Dom and Arthur were there. They're a dysfunctional family, she reminds herself. They fit.

Then she hitches her satchel higher on her shoulder. The flight to Charles De Gaulle airport was about ten hours, and she's armed with a book and her iPod.

She hopes that by some stroke of luck she'll get an empty seat next to her, but when she boards the plane, the seat on her right is already taken. Pity. With a wistful smile, she recalls flying first-class on Saito's plane. That was fun.

Her seatmate looks like a businessman, dressed in a suit – not the most comfortable airplane attire. Ariadne herself is in old, well-worn jeans, sneakers, a t-shirt and a cardigan. Her scarf came loose when she was saying goodbye to James, and she's tied it to the strap of her bag.

She sits. The businessman is immersed in the in-flight dining menu, which is boring, so she looks straight ahead at the seat in front of her. That way she won't have to see him. Ariadne wonders if she can fall asleep now and miss the takeoff entirely. She hates takeoffs.

"The chicken sandwich sounds nice," says a disembodied, familiar noise on her right. Ariadne turns her head a full ninety degrees, and looks at Arthur straight-on.

He smiles crookedly at the shock on her face.


	3. Filler: Big Jet Plane

AN: Another chapter! Wow. I have a vague idea about where this is going, but it's entirely moving on its own so far. Oh, and because I forgot my disclaimer before - I own nothing (pity). _BND _stands for _Bundesnachrichtendienst, _which is the German foreign intelligence agency. I know nothing about this agency, so I'm just name-dropping. No offense meant.

This is a short one, and intended to be a filler. School just started and posting will be sporadic, to say the least. I hope it doesn't disappoint!

* * *

She's starting to rethink her belief that Arthur is practical. He seems to tend toward the dramatic, even as he tries to stay tangible. It's difficult, Ariadne thinks, for a detective. The occupation itself necessitates dramatics.

"So can you tell me about your case in Paris, or is it hush-hush?"

_I'd have to kill you, _imaginary-Arthur says with a smirk.

"The _BND_, and that's really all I can say. Don't ask me how to spell that out."

A tall, willowy stewardess approaches their seats. Ariadne finds herself envying her blonde curls and the silky French accent in her voice.

"Hot towel, mademoiselle, monsieur?"

She senses that Arthur is staring at the stewardess too. She clenches her fists so that the knuckles turn white. "Non, merci."

"I'll have one," Arthur says. "Thank you." He chooses a fluffy white cloth from the tray and waits for the stewardess to move on before unwrapping it.

The towel is stained at the corner with a tiny symbol – a cluster of sunflowers. Van Gogh, Ariadne thinks. She is tempted to say it aloud, but it sounds silly in her head and will likely sound silly in speech. Arthur's fingers caress the painted symbol.

"What's that?"

"A signal. She has reason to believe that a smuggler is on this plane."

"Who?"

"I can't give you the suspect's name, you know that."

"Who's working with you?"

"Adelle, my contact. You saw her earlier."

"You're contact is a stewardess?"

"Yes."

"And you believe her?"

"Ariadne, I trust her with my life."

She wonders how it had happened, how the cold man of calculated risks had managed to take enough of her heart to break it. _Do you trust me with my life? _Imaginary-Ariadne asks. Imaginary-Arthur is silent. _Well, I trust you, _continues her imagined self. _With my life. I would let you kill me, you know. If you wanted to._

"I can understand that."

"I'm going to have to change seats to look for the suspect," Arthur says.

"Right, maybe I'll see you at Charles De Gaulle."

"No, I'll have to meet the _gendarmes._" French sounds like it might be Mandarin in Arthur's mouth. Ariadne would be amused, if she isn't so numb at the moment.

"Okay. Next time." She knows, she's grown to be able to tell when she's lying to herself.

"Sure." Arthur waits as Ariadne stands to let him pass. "You can have my window seat, if it makes up for the loss."

Loss of what? Of him. Of course.

"Thanks."

Then he's gone, a clean-cut figure in charcoal grey striding his way down the aisle easily. Ariadne spots a flash of golden hair, and a pale hand grabbing Arthur's risk, drawing him into the safety of the small space between cabins.

Ariadne tries not to look and concetrates on shifting into Arthur's seat, taking her satchel with her.

It smells of fine cologne and hazelnuts, and underneath it all the stark scent of dry-cleaned fabric.

It smells like him.

She curls up a little and refrains from inhaling deep breaths. She's always been an addict. Her vision narrows, and all that's in front of her is the greying material of the seat in front of her, furry and attracting bits of lint.

The iPod rests in her satchel, ignored in favour of conversation with Arthur. She hadn't expected to be ignored in favour of a blonde stewardess. _Blonde. _Ariadne can't help but smile at the hilarity of it. Ousted by a blonde. Who knew?

"_Je repars à zero," _Piaf croons in her ears. _I start from zero. _It's Paris. There are worse places to go to learn how to live and build again. She's soon-to-be blind, but not dead.


End file.
